Character Contest 25: Masthead!

That winged cow-head fellow appears in the banner right at the top of this here site, on every single page.

I hate it. And I want you to make a better one.

Therefore, whoever submits the best HeroMachine-created illustration to replace the redoubtable minotaur will have that character appear from here on out in the actual HeroMachine.com banner instead. It's practically immortality! Well, at least til UGO redesigns the whole thing again, anyway. But close!

Here are the rules:

The character submitted cannot have been entered in a HeroMachine contest before.

Submissions must be made as comments to this post, including a link to the character image on the web someplace (UGO Forums, PhotoBucket, whatever).

No more than three (3) entries per person, with a deadline of Monday night at midnight.

Hm, good question Jake. Since only the headshot will appear in the masthead (anything bigger just becomes a blur, mostly), that’s probably the smartest thing to do. But it’s not a rule or anything, full-shots are still fine as long as it looks good when cropped like it will need to be to show in that narrow space.

Ultimately, THAT’s the criteria — how does it look in that space. In other words, cool feet probably aren’t the most important factor here 🙂

Gene, to be honest I think it was a designer (don’t know who) at UGO who was just hacking around in the app and using it as a placeholder in the overall design. Once it was in, I couldn’t get it changed.

I think it’s been long enough now that no one will notice. I am such a REBEL!

when you say character cannot have been entered do you mean the illustration or the character specifically i am working on a redesign of a female i had entered previously, so would it be a viable entry as long as it not the same illustration i entered previously.

Superfan1, post “The Smoking Gun” to the Forums, and come up with a story (at least 5 sentences), and it gets a HotW Nomination, for sure!
But, for the banner, there can be only one…
And that one must be Super Jeff! 😀

I actually had two of my characters on your old banner (Scorpidius and Hujan the elephant) and I must say it was a big buzz seeing them there everytime I came to the site, so good luck to whoever wins this, because it is great seeing your work up there!

@Tristan: Interesting, I have considered something like that … I thought about maybe giving you from Tuesday til Thursday night to make submissions, then putting the finalists up for Friday Night Fights, with the winner settled on the following Tuesday. What would you think about that?

@DTC: All the ones I’d choose as finalists would be honorable mentions. That’s how I do it ordinarily, I go through all the submissions, pull out the handful that are HMs, and from those pick the one winner. In this case, the role of “chooser” would be played by the public voting.

hey Jeff, How hard is it for you to change the mast head? What about using this contest to kick off the change, then every two weeks feature the winner of the every-other-week character contest in the banner?

The masthead is pretty easy to change, and that’s something to consider doing. Good idea!

Actually though we’re going to be launching a new initiative in a week or so that will feature the winner’s creation, name, and brief character description (I think those are the fields, anyway) in HeroMachine “Create Your Own Hero” type ads that’ll be splashed all over UGO.com to be seen by, literally, millions of visitors each week. That image will change weekly with each new winner. So the weekly contest winner will have their work featured on a major web site for a week, which is pretty cool.

I’m not sure how that’ll affect the weekly contest format. I should put up a post for feedback on that …

I have recently experienced a bug in Firefox in which i set up several objects in a few categories and as soon as i switch to a new category several items are deleted this bug has hindered my two character attempts for this contest 🙁

Okay, so, this might seem like it was made out of laziness, but not really. I spent more time thinking about it than I did working on it, is all. I was thinking about something sci-fi inspired. I wanted to make a future banner that could lure people here. I wanted to make something sexy, cool, and something that didn’t stray too far away from the idea of being able to make your own hero. Here goes nothing, my first, last, and only attempt at this contest:

@Danny, thanks. I’ve been working on him for a long time, trying to get him just right, probably 2 or 3 weeks. In all fairness, After making 20+ different designs, I had to turn to the ugo forums for help, and there Imp inspired me with his own version. I took the two versions I had kept, and Imp’s version, tinkered and wa-la, Vanguard was born.

Introducing Johnny Rogers aka J.R. , the standard superhero. His origin is simple he got hit in the head with a basket ball during basket ball practice at his high school. Which gave him a mild concussion, and the most basic super powers.

He works for his local sheriff’s department, and occasionally is called in by the U.S. military. He is sponsored by the S.S.C.C. Super Suit Clothing Company, and wears, models, and advertises many superhero costumes. He also owns his own superhero gadget company, simply known as Rj’s Super Gadgets. These gadgets are mostly designed, and made for other superheros. R.J. has been shown to use them when needed, although rarely.

This character is meant to be the incarnation of all things “Dark age”. He’s a giant, freakishly muscular mutant cyborg biker with big guns, samurai swords, bullets a plenty, and a bright orange Mohawk. You don’t get more late 80s/early 90s than that.

Even if I don’t win, I can still take solace in the fact that no matter how bad she is, she’s still better than the old mascot. As you can see, I matched her theme with the theme of the site. It would’ve been a lot easier if you had a proper pegasus insignia.